


across these pages

by hudders-and-hiddles (huddersandhiddles)



Series: between each beat [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Sequel, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-05 02:20:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10295348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huddersandhiddles/pseuds/hudders-and-hiddles
Summary: After the reception ends, John and Sherlock exchange wedding gifts.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady_MacPhisto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_MacPhisto/gifts), [darcylindbergh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/gifts).



> Lots of readers left lovely comments on [between each beat are words unsaid](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4794824/chapters/10973324) wondering what it would be like when John and Sherlock actually share all these things they'd written to and about each other, and I couldn't resist bringing that part of the story to life. Fair warning that if you haven't read the first part of this series, this fic probably won't have much relevance for you, as it heavily references pieces of that story.
> 
> Big thanks to Darcy for being my ever-patient beta and pushing me onward every time I was afraid I was gonna fuck this up.
> 
> This fic is dedicated to my wonderful friend ladymacphisto, who has been so amazingly supportive and really wanted to see more of these boys, as well as to Darcy, of course, as without her this series wouldn't even exist. Love you both bunches and bunches. <3 <3 <3

John tastes like champagne.

Bubbly and giddy. Sunshine bright. Citrus sweet. Laughing, luxurious, liquid, lush, golden.

He tastes like champagne, and Sherlock can’t stop kissing him long enough for him to get the keycard into the door.

John’s hand shakes with laughter as he presses Sherlock away just long enough for the card to fit into the slot, the light to flash green, the knob to turn, before Sherlock is kissing him again, pressing him back against the door and spilling them into the room. He still feels half-drunk, but whether it’s from glass after glass of Perrier-Jouët or the feeling of John’s mouth on his, he isn’t sure.

Stumbling back into the wall, John giggles, breathless, and Sherlock licks it from his lips, savouring his joy.

Then John’s hands are on his arse, pulling, squeezing, and Sherlock needs more, needs them on his skin. He slips his hands between them and fumbles at the button on his jacket, but John catches his fingers before they can unfasten it.

“No,” he says. “Wait.”

He brushes along the navy velvet of the suit jacket, sliding his hands around to frame Sherlock’s waist, fingers twitching, rubbing, sweeping against the plush fabric.

“God, I’ve wanted to do this all night. Every time I look at you.” His hands slip around to Sherlock’s back, track up his spine. They fan out across his shoulders, trace down his chest beneath the slim lapels, circling, feeling. “This suit,” he says. “You look so… touchable. All I wanted was to drag you off the dance floor and get my hands on more of you.”

Another circuit and another, hands slipping and squeezing and swirling over waist and back and chest, again and again, touching him everywhere, touching him nowhere at all because of this maddening barrier between them. Sherlock’s belly clenches against wave after wave of desire, before John’s fingers finally find the button and slip it free. He slides his hands inside, palms smoothing along the quivering planes of Sherlock’s stomach, where he can feel the heat of them through the thin silk-blend of his shirt.

“Can I undress you?” John whispers, his lips finding Sherlock’s neck, his collarbones, the notch at the base of his throat. “Unwrap you?”

A shiver runs down Sherlock’s spine at the hot press of those words into his skin. He barely nods and then John’s hands are on him, really, properly on him, pushing off his jacket, his shirt with renewed haste. Stroking his chest, slipping under his waistband, tugging at his zip. Pulling off his shoes, his socks, sliding his trousers and pants down to the floor. Squeezing at his thighs, his calves, his arse. Mouth working at the crest of his hip, the scant trail of hair below his navel, the soft swell of his bollocks, the base, the length, the head of him, and swallowing him down in one long slide.

Sherlock’s fingers push into John’s hair, needing something to hold, something to ground him, pleasure already pooling between his hips, warm and molten and sticky-sweet. It’s good--it’s always good--and Sherlock is dizzy with the feeling of it, of John’s mouth on him, of his husband sucking him in soft, slow pulls.

His husband.

_His husband._

The reality of it crashes into him, and he stares down at the man he just married. Wide-eyed. Breathless. This is his husband, sucking him off on their wedding night. His husband, the man he married, John, here with him, on their wedding night, in their honeymoon suite. It’s something he’d never thought he’d have, something he’d barely allowed himself to even imagine, but it’s real, it’s here. John is his. John is staying.

Sherlock tries to say his name, but it gets caught in the emotion knotting itself in his throat. He swallows hard, blinks, tries again, slipping a hand down to brush against John’s cheek. “John.”

John pulls off and looks up at him, glassy-eyed, with swollen lips that Sherlock desperately needs to kiss.

“Up,” he says, “get up here,” offering John a shaking hand and helping pull him to his feet, already bending to press their mouths together again, wet and hot and hurried. “Bed,” he commands between kisses, guiding them there, back, back until John’s knees hit the edge of the mattress, buckling, and Sherlock follows him down, nipping at his mouth, his cheek, his jaw, lips stinging deliciously from the scrape of stubble there. He traces down to the hollow beneath his jawline, his throat, his adam’s apple, groaning in frustration when he meets resistance--shirt, tie, jacket, waistcoat, all of it in the way. Too much. Much too much in the way.

“Take this off,” he urges, already sitting up and tugging loose the knot of John’s tie. “This all needs to come off.”

John pushes himself up on his elbows and smirks. “What, you don’t like the suit?”

“Of course, I like the suit,” Sherlock tells him, slipping free the button on his jacket and pushing it aside to reveal the navy silk of his waistcoat so that he can unbutton that, too. “You look bloody gorgeous in the suit, but right now you need to be naked. Very naked.”

He bends and kisses John again, hard and quick, and then they’re both scrabbling at buttons. They knock heads, bat each other’s hands out of the way laughing, get tangled in sleeves with cuffs still done up. John’s shoes and socks sail across the suite. His trousers end up a charcoal puddle half-hidden under the bed.

At last, John lifts his hips and Sherlock slides his pants down and off, and finally, finally he is gloriously, beautifully bare. Sherlock only has a moment to take in the sight of him before John collapses back onto the bed again, dragging Sherlock with him, slotting their hips together in urgent demand.

They rock into one another, meeting each other’s thrusts with moans and grunts and each other’s names on their breath. John slides a hand between them, wraps it around their cocks and pulls in short, firm strokes that make Sherlock shiver with need, arousal spiraling high and tight and fast through his core. He can’t breathe, for the way it squeezes around his lungs, but John is relentless, panting against his throat, sucking at his neck, snapping his hips again and again, pressing them together, rocking, canting, licking, nipping, groaning, stroking, stroking, stroking.

“Please,” Sherlock begs, “John, please,” at the same time John says, “Yes come on, do it, come on.”

 _Not yet,_ he wants to say, _not without you,_ but all he manages is “You.”

Brilliant John, he understands anyway. “I’m-- I’m there,” he says, his hand brushing over the head of Sherlock’s cock and setting off sparks behind his eyes, burning and bright.

“Come on,” he gasps, and Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut and surrenders to it, lets the electric pleasure of it overtake him. He can feel John’s cock thicken and harden against his own, and it’s intoxicating, exhilarating, overwhelmingly erotic, and that’s all it takes, and they both spill over the edge, together, groaning pleasure into each other’s mouths between open, panting kisses, come smearing hot and sticky between their stomachs.

Sherlock collapses on top of him, sliding halfway off his side with an arm still sprawled across his chest, legs still twisted together, feeling the heavy rise and fall of John’s chest against his own. When John chuckles, Sherlock can feel the vibrations of it through his entire body.

“What?”

“Just,” John says around his laughter, “we’re married. I just-- I just had sex with my husband.” He says it a little hysterical but full of wonder, and when he kisses Sherlock again, he’s still shaking with mirth that Sherlock can taste on his tongue.

They lie there, trading kisses that soften and sweeten, John’s fingers finding their way into Sherlock’s hair, rubbing tiny circles into his scalp as their breathing slows again.

“I love you,” John tells him, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

Sherlock tilts his chin up and drops a kiss to the tip of John’s nose. “I love you. Husband.”

“Mmm, I like the sound of that. How long do you think it’ll take for us to get tired of saying it?”

He says it as a joke, of course, but Sherlock answers, serious and quiet, like a secret whispered between them, “I don’t think I ever will.”

“Oh, love.” John brushes their lips together, “Me neither,” and kisses Sherlock again, lingering and tender.

“Come on,” he says when they finally part, slipping out from under Sherlock’s boneless form. “Let’s get cleaned up.” He stands and offers Sherlock a hand, pulling him to his feet. “And then--” He smiles, his whole face alight. “Then I have a gift for you.”

 

*****

 

They take their time in the shower, soaping each other up and washing each other slowly, reverently. Their hands smoothe along every curve and plane, slide into every bend and crevice. Lips slick from the spray, they kiss long and leisurely, luxuriating in the heat and the slippery press of their bodies against one another.

It’s different, kissing his husband. Sherlock hadn’t thought it would be, but it is. It’s still John, but there’s something there, something more. It courses through his veins, the way the cocaine used to, silky-hot and seductive, except this is richer somehow, deeper. Leaching down into his bones. Taking root.

They stay there, holding each other close, until the water starts to cool and their fingers to prune, and then get out to pat each other dry, moving no farther apart than absolutely necessary to towel off and wrap themselves in the plush cotton robes hanging on the back of the door. They clean their teeth side-by-side and then kiss against the counter, against the linen cupboard, against the frame of the door.

Sherlock slips a hand between the folds of John’s robe, finding him half-hard and intending to help him the rest of the way there, but John pulls away with a cheeky grin.

“Nope,” he says, backing into the bedroom. “I believe I told you I had a present for you first.”

Sherlock stalks toward him with a smirk. “Is it a big package? Because in that case, I believe I’ve already found it.”

He bounds forward, intending to pin John to the bed, but at the last second, John slips around him, giggling. They chase each other around the room, breathless with laughter, swatting each other’s hands away, twisting out of each other’s grasp, until Sherlock feints right but John anticipates it and succeeds in pushing him back onto the bed, crawling over him and pinning his arms above his head.

“Gotcha.”

“That you do.”

John beams down at him and presses a quick, warm kiss to the plush rise of his mouth. “No really though. I want to give you something.” He climbs off of Sherlock and heads for the wardrobe in the corner of the room.

“I have something for you, too,” Sherlock replies, slipping off the bed. “Be right back.”

Before John can turn around, he grabs his suit jacket off the floor and shuts himself in the bathroom. He pulls a few crisply folded pieces of paper from the inner pocket and attempts to flatten them out again before digging in the back of the linen cupboard for the box he’d stored there this afternoon.

The lid slips off easily, revealing a messy stack of papers inside. Some are small, and some are large. Many are printouts, but a few are handwritten. There are well over a hundred pages in total, and the thought of what they contain, of what it means to give them to John, churns in his belly like a summer storm.

He ruffles through them and slides the newly-flattened ones from his pocket into the stack, almost at the end, and then presses the lid back down onto the box. Another rifle through his inner pocket produces a pre-measured length of silver ribbon that he ties into a neat bow around the gift. With one last look in the mirror to be sure the nerves thundering through him aren’t echoed on his face, he picks up the box and opens the door.

John is waiting on the bed with a box of his own, and though Sherlock already knows what it contains, it does nothing to quell his swirling jitters.

“Here,” John says almost as soon as Sherlock’s settled next to him. “I wanted to give you something special today. Something important. And I, uh, I think it is.” He says it with a little shrug, a tiny bit of doubt creeping in.

“It is,” Sherlock reassures him, and John huffs out a laugh.

“You don’t even know what it is yet.”

Sherlock bends forward and kisses him because he does. He does know, and it is important, and he doesn’t know how else to say thank you for a gift he hasn’t opened yet but knows is the most important thing he’ll ever receive.

He sits back and presses his own gift into John’s hands, concentrating hard on keeping his from shaking. “For you. I-- I hope it’s okay.”

“I’m sure it’ll be perfect,” John tells him, already pulling open the ribbon to get at what’s inside.

Sherlock makes no move to open John’s gift to him, just watches as John pulls the lid off the box, a hint of recognition visible in the rise of his brow. He picks up the piece of paper on top and begins reading.

The words on the page take shape on his face, and Sherlock knows where he is in the letter by the curve of his lips, the softness in his eyes. Two-thirds of the way down, John laughs, loud and full. “You knew?”

Sherlock shrugs, his heart beating frantically in his throat, and John shakes his head fondly.

“I should have known I couldn’t keep it from you.”

The squall in Sherlock’s stomach grows to a tumultuous pitch. “Is it-- is it okay?”

“Yes. Of course. I love it, sweetheart.” John presses a quick kiss to his cheek, and Sherlock puffs out a long breath, the whirlwind of worry dissipating and relief flooding in. “Now go on and open yours since you already know what it is.”

Still smiling, he picks up the letter to find where he left off, and Sherlock pulls the lid from the box in his lap.

And even though he knew what it contained, seeing it all here--neatly stacked in bundles, clipped together, sorted--it’s overwhelming. He can’t stop staring, thinking about all that these pages might hold. All the loss and pain, but also joy and hope. All the things he had spent so long wishing he could know, and some he may soon wish he could forget, laid out before him, enticing and terrifying all at once.

John pops his head up again, sensing his disquiet. “You okay?”

“I’m--” Sherlock clears his throat and does his best to meet John’s gaze. “I’m fine.”

The look John gives him is doubtful, but he doesn’t ask any more. Instead, he offers his hand and waits for Sherlock to take it. “Well, don’t go anywhere, okay? If what’s in this gift is anything like what I put in yours, I’m gonna need you here with me.”

Sherlock squeezes his hand and nods.

Then he unclips the top page from the stack and begins to read.

_Dear Sherlock,_

_If you’re reading this, we’ve just got married._

 

*****

 

“You--” Sherlock swallows around the constricting tightness in his throat, his eyes darting back to the page in his hands. A draft post from John’s blog dated July 2010, less than six months after they met. “ _I wanted to get into that bed with Sherlock,_ ” he reads aloud. “You wanted that? That long ago?”

John looks up from what he’s reading, his lips pinched into a half-smile, fingers finding and squeezing Sherlock’s thigh, reassuring. “That long ago.”

 

*****

 

John laughs, triumphant, as if he’s been let in on an old secret. “So that really was a date.”

Sherlock finishes the sentence he’s reading and turns to look at him in question.

“Dinner. Romantic music.” John glances back at the page in his hands. “‘Meditation’ by Jules Massenet apparently? I always wondered.”

The grin that splits Sherlock’s face says he remembers that night all too well. “Of course it was a date. Obvious really.” He leans over to press a kiss to John’s cheek, feeling the happiness in the answering pull of the muscles against his lips.

“Oh, of course. Obvious.”

 

*****

 

 _I told you he was going to do something stupid._ John’s texts to Mycroft, according to the information at the top of the page. The day after Sherlock jumped. _Sorry, that was uncalled for. I am sorry, for what it’s worth. I know you loved him. I loved him too._

The words are jarring in their simplicity.

_I loved him too._

Crisp black ink printed against a stark white sheet of A4.

_I loved him too._

It’s the first time those words appear in these pages, these memories. John had hinted at them elsewhere, but this is the first time they appear in such plain terms.

John loved him.

Of course he did; he’s told Sherlock as much, breathed the words into his mouth, licked them into his skin. But to see them written out, given to Mycroft as a peace offering in the wake of what Sherlock had done, the truth of it aches in the hollow pit of his belly.

John had loved him, and Sherlock had left him behind.

He hadn’t known then, but he knows now, the proof here in his own two hands, and the words to come will hurt that much more for knowing.

Bracing himself against the surging tide of regret, he pulls the next page from the box.

 

*****

 

Tension settles between them, gradual and quiet, the way that day slips imperceptibly into night. The stiffening of a spine, the quickening of a pulse. A solitary breath that quakes around the edges. The hint of a tremor along a creaking length of bone. And silence, hanging like a grim shadow.

In this chapter of their story, there’s a eulogy John never gave, texts he never sent, posts he never made. There’s pleading and anger and two years’ worth of unsaid pain, flaying Sherlock open with a thousand little paper cuts of sorrow.

But none of them slice as deeply as the revelation of a sprained wrist and a confiscated Sig Sauer.

 _If Lestrade hadn’t been there, hadn’t realised…_ Nauseous unease roils in his belly, turbid and black. He’d always known they’d come perilously close to losing one another during his time away from London, but he’d assumed the real danger had all been his to bear.

Or perhaps that’s just what he had chosen to believe--ignoring the signs upon his return that indicated just how badly John had been hurt by his absence--preferring the fantasy that what he’d done was forgivable, forgettable even, so long as they both were safe. Better that than the dagger twist of truth.

But here it is in John’s own words, and Sherlock’s heart aches with the full weight of the devastation he’d caused.

He turns to reach for John, needing to feel muscle and solid bone and a steady beating heart beneath his fingers, only to find John already reaching back, shaking hands pulling at robes and arms and backs and necks.

“Sherlock, you--”

“I’m sorry.”

“God, you really thought that--”

“I’m so sorry, John--”

A broken sob. A shuddering breath. Fingers digging into flesh hard enough to bruise.

“--that you weren’t going to make it home--”

“--for hurting you when I left. I didn’t know that you’d--”

“--that you were going to die out there, alone.”

Desperate lips find jaws and cheekbones and eyelids and brows. Messy. Panting. Urgent. Tears smearing against each other’s skin.

“If I’d come back and you had-- if you’d--”

“And you came back and I didn’t know.”

“Thank god that he--”

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, love.”

“Thank god you’re here.”

Sherlock's robe slips from his shoulder, and John trails wet kisses down and back up his exposed chest between words gusting hot against his skin, making him shiver.

“I’m here. I’m here, and you came back to me. ”

“I came back to you. I came back for you.”

“I’ll always be here.”

“I always will. Always.”

When their lips finally meet, Sherlock kisses his husband like the miracle it is.

They fall back onto the mattress, arms wound tight around each other’s backs, pressing, clutching, squeezing out the lingering distance of a fall from rooftop to pavement. John’s mouth finds Sherlock’s neck, the curve of his shoulder, his clavicles, his sternum. His fingers fumble at the tie on Sherlock’s robe. “I need to see you. I need to--”

“You,” Sherlock breathes, pushing feebly at the fabric covering John’s shoulders. “You, too.”

The knot finally slips free, the sides of Sherlock’s robe falling away, and John sucks him down, greedy, engulfing him in desperate, wet heat that arcs through his spine like lightning.

Sherlock chokes out a sob, and John works him relentlessly until he’s hard and flushed and keening, stars of pleasure already bursting behind his eyes with every slick pull. But then just when it’s on the edge of too much, John’s mouth softens, the intensity giving way to something delicate, something that feels so heartbreakingly close to reverence it sets Sherlock trembling. Hands shaking, he pulls at John’s shoulders and arms until he slips off and lets Sherlock guide him up, their lips meeting soft and deep and lingering between shared, shuddering breaths.

John pushes back, just enough to meet Sherlock’s eyes, his own ocean-dark as he takes in Sherlock shivering beneath him, their chests heaving together as they pant around this heady mix of arousal and fear and longing and awe. “I want--” he breathes. “I need to feel you.”

“Yes.”

Sherlock pushes up onto his elbows to capture his mouth again, lush and wet, John’s words warm on his lips. “Please. I--”

“Yes. Yes.”

They take their time, peeling off their robes and casting long looks over the miracle of each other’s bodies. Pressing gentle kisses to long-healed scars. Whispering into curves and bends and rises. And slowly, carefully, Sherlock slicks his fingers and presses them into John, one by one, watching the pleasure of it ripple out like raindrops on still waters.

Heat blossoms pink on John’s chest and neck. His breath comes faster. A crook of Sherlock’s fingers, and he groans desperately loud. “Now,” he pants between kisses gone messy with need. “Please.” And when Sherlock’s fingers slip free, John settles into the cradle of his hips with one long, slow slide.

After a moment to breathe around the profound feeling of it--because this feels new, because this is his husband and it’s clear now how terribly close they both came to not making it here--Sherlock opens his eyes to find John looking back, eyes shimmering with the same wondrous relief that threatens to smother him.

They both reach, hands finding hands, fingers twisting between fingers, and they rock together, gentle as the sea.

 

*****

 

The page John’s reading falls lazily from his hand. “Did I ever say thank you?” he mumbles, the words muzzy, half-muffled by his pillow.

Sherlock lifts his head from John’s chest and blinks heavily, trying to process the question. Sleep-slow, he can’t quite make the connection. “For the sex?”

John’s answering laugh is low and warm--embers stoked to a hazy glow. “That, too.” His hand comes up to cup Sherlock’s jaw, and the laughter gives way to something quieter, his thumb brushing across Sherlock’s cheek, feather-light. “But I meant for saving me. From the fire.” He nods toward the page now lying next to them on the bed. “I pushed you away, and still you came to save me. You’re always saving me, it seems.”

“You’ve saved me, too.” Sherlock closes his eyes and leans into John’s hand, revelling in the way it makes him feel fragile and steady all at once. “More than you know.”

 

*****

 

_Sherlock, I_

The two words stare up at him from the coffee table, dropped in the midst of a churning sea of pages turned a worn and tired beige in the low lamplight. It’s a haphazard map of memories of the half-life Sherlock had been leading in the weeks and months surrounding John and Mary’s wedding.

He’d thrown all his energy into planning, into the pursuit of perfection, and kept nothing for himself. Barely eating. Barely sleeping. Barely working. Barely coping. He’d been little more than a skeleton, brittle and empty, rattling along to suit fittings and cake tastings, giving all of himself--what little that was--for John and his happiness. And each night when the work was done, he’d crawl back into the hole he’d dug for himself, silent and hollow and alone.

He had thought he was losing everything. He had thought he’d already lost it, that whatever chance he might have had had ended when he’d stepped off the roof of Barts.

And yet:

_Sherlock, I_

An unsent text from John, the morning of the wedding. There was something he’d wanted to say--tried to, started to--but he had stopped himself, just as Sherlock had left his own last-second plea unsent. It seems they had both wanted to reach but been too afraid they’d come up only clutching fistfuls of smoke. Of dust.

Across the room John stirs in his sleep, and Sherlock watches him curl onto his side, comfortable and content, one hand stretching out into the empty space where Sherlock had been. He thinks about all the nights he spent alone in his own bed with John worlds away, whether in the bedroom upstairs or in a flat on the other side of the city, wondering how many times he’d reached out just the same, hoping he’d find something more than stale air. He thinks about all the texts and emails and notes he’d written. About those he’d sent and those he didn’t. About John doing the same, both of them struggling to find each other through the distance, again and again and again.

He thinks about how they hadn’t stopped.

They hadn’t always been strong enough, fearless enough to hit send, to just come out and ask for what they wanted, but they hadn’t stopped trying to reach anyway. Until one day, John--brave, beautiful, brilliant John--had held out his hand, and Sherlock had finally been there to take it.

He pushes himself to his feet, all stiff knees and popping ankles, and crawls back into bed, carefully wriggling his way beneath John’s arm, leaving all the lonely memories of before scattered in his wake.

Because now when one of them stretches out a hand, there should always, always be someone there to reach back.

 

*****

 

Propped together against the headboard, they’re heavy and sleep-mussed, comfortable and close, John nestled into the vee between his legs, when Sherlock feels the tremble of a hand against his knee and the deep inhale that precedes a weighty sigh. John tips his head back against Sherlock’s chest, little lines of distress etching themselves into his brow, and Sherlock peers over his shoulder at the cause of it: a list scrawled in his own messy hand after he’d fled from the wedding.

He wraps an arm around John’s waist, pulling him closer into the curve of his body. There’s nothing he can do to change the past; what’s done is done. All he can offer is this: to hold John close and breathe with him through the ache of it.

For a long while it’s quiet, save for the pre-dawn sounds of the city drifting in on the breeze through the open balcony door. It won’t be long before London wakes and bursts into the fresh motion of a new day, but for now there’s still the soft silence that survives somewhere between dreams and waking.

John’s words when he finds them are resigned. His turns to meet Sherlock’s eyes, his own flecked with steely guilt. “I’m sorry I put you through all of that. Put us through it.”

Sherlock presses a kiss to his forehead and pulls him closer still. He wonders if they’ll ever stop feeling guilty about their past, if they’ll ever stop apologising to one another for it. It would be nice, he thinks, to move past it for good. To let it be part of them rather than between them.

To just be happy.

Someday.

He closes his eyes and strokes his hand softly over the familiar warmth of John’s belly.

Outside, the first fingers of light stretch into the sky.

 

*****

 

Sherlock laughs around a bite of croissant, barely managing to swallow it down without sputtering crumbs all over the sofa.

“I can’t believe you got Mycroft to authorise this.”

John cocks his head in question, and Sherlock flashes him the transcript he’s been reading. “Oh, that,” he says, a secret hiding in his smile. “I have my ways.”

A look of stern admonishment hastily replaces Sherlock’s grin, and he struggles not to let crack. “Those better not be the same ‘ways’ that you use on me.”

John merely crooks an eyebrow in response, and the two of them stare at each other in stony silence until they both break into simultaneous giggles.

It’s a beautiful sound, and Sherlock crawls across the sofa to press his mouth to John’s, buttery fingers slipping under the hem of his pyjamas to find the dewy, morning warmth of his skin.

This is what he wants for them--days that always start with this kind of joy, with John’s fingers twisting in his hair and easy laughter over breakfast and early morning sunlight gilding their silhouettes. This is why he bought the cottage in Sussex, a home unshadowed by the past that still haunts them, a place where he hopes they’ll be able to find this uncomplicated kind of happiness and hold on to it for the rest of their days.

“I promised him,” John says when the kisses slow, “that we’d owe him two cases.”

Sherlock pulls back to look him in the eye--“You what?”--and John knocks a playful slap against his chest.

“You’ll survive.”

“I won’t.”

“You will.”

Sherlock huffs out a loud, heavy sigh coupled with a dramatic eyeroll, but it’s all for show. “You better be glad I love you.”

John’s mouth twists into that same crooked smile Sherlock fell in love with years ago. “I am,” he replies, so bright and genuine and fond that Sherlock thinks it might actually be true.

 

*****

 

_Happy._

The word echoes through Sherlock’s head as he watches John reading his last few pages, sprawled across the other side of the bed.

_Happy._

_John is happy._

The final note in his gift--a message scribbled on a cocktail napkin in the middle of their reception last night--says as much, and Sherlock is struck dumb with realisation.

_John is actually happy._

It shouldn’t be such an unexpected thought. He’s long known that he can make John laugh, that he can make him smile, that he can give him pleasure or joy or comfort at particular moments. But Sherlock has always seen those as little tokens of joy, fleeting downy bits of it placed carefully in the palm of John’s hand, ever in danger of floating away in the breeze.

When Sherlock thinks about the happiness John has given to him, it’s always so much more than that. It’s something big and solid and lasting. For Sherlock, there’s joy in being in John’s presence. There’s joy in sharing a life with him, even the mundane and the difficult parts. There’s joy in knowing that John exists in the world, that John Watson simply is.

It’s why it’s been so easy for Sherlock to give up so much for him over the years. It’s why Sherlock’s been so quick to forgive and to forget and to move past the ways he’s been hurt.

Because no matter what else may happen, John makes him happy.

And even though they’ve been together now for more than a year, even though they’ve just gotten married, even though John tells him all the time, Sherlock hadn’t realised before now that when John says he’s happy, he means it the same way that Sherlock does: bone-deep and eternal, as much a part of life as breathing.

John is truly and fully and--to Sherlock--unexpectedly happy.

It should have been obvious really. It’s scrawled across these pages he’s been reading, woven through the vows John made, twined through every conversation, every memory, every moment since they met, a technicolor thread of joy, vivid and unbreakable, but Sherlock had been too blind to see it, too worried about how to make John happy to realise he already is.

A gasp interrupts his epiphany, bringing him back to the present where John is staring at him with wide, wet eyes, his mouth dropped open in almost-comical surprise. “A house?” he asks, eyes darting between Sherlock’s face and the note clutched tightly in his hand. “You bought us a house?”

“I--” Sherlock falters, but he pushes through the uncertainty that he can never seem to fully shake when it comes to John. “Yes. Do you-- Is it okay?”

“Okay?” John launches himself across the bed and presses his lips to every bit of Sherlock’s face he can find. “Oh my god, you’re incredible. I can’t-- Seriously? You bought us a house?”

Relief and excitement swirl warm through Sherlock’s belly. “I did.” He rolls to his back, pulling John on top of him and relishing in the warm, bare weight of him pressed across his hips as John dips low to kiss him--again and again and again--both of them bubbling with delight.

A buzzing on the far bedside table interrupts the moment, and John drops his head to Sherlock’s chest with a sigh. “Shit. That’ll be the driver.” He leans across the bed to snatch up his mobile, Sherlock groaning in protest, and thumbs open the incoming text message. “He’s on his way. Christ, we haven’t even showered, or dressed, or finished pack--”

The renewed sense of urgency threatens to launch him into motion, but Sherlock catches him before he can bound from the bed, long fingers settling into the familiar dip of his waist and dragging him back for a lengthy kiss. The sharp edge of John’s panic melts away under the press of Sherlock’s lips, and he sinks down onto Sherlock’s chest, tucking his face into the curve of his neck. The warmth of his breath raises gooseflesh across Sherlock’s skin.

“I can’t believe you bought us a cottage.” His fingers trace idle circles over the curve of Sherlock’s shoulder, and Sherlock draws matching ones across the plane of John’s back. “Wish we could go see it.”

_Oh._

Sherlock stills, John’s words sparking a fragile flame to life. _Oh, that’s an idea._

“We could,” he whispers.

“Mmm. Could what?”

“Go see it.” Sherlock hadn’t considered it before--they’re supposed to be leaving for their honeymoon after all--but now that John’s ignited the spark, Sherlock lets it flare up bright. “We should. We should go today.”

John pushes himself up to sitting, settling on the edge of the mattress with his leg tucked beneath him. “Our flight leaves in…” He glances at the clock. “...two and a half hours. Unless this cottage of ours is between here and Heathrow, I don’t think--”

“It’s in Sussex.”

“Sussex?” John asks, his brows raised high as he huffs out an incredulous laugh. “We can’t go to Sussex today.”

“We can. I’ll call my brother, have him rearrange everything for us--”

John shakes his head gently. “No, it’s fine. I really wasn’t saying that I wish we could go right now. I mean, yes, I’m excited to see it,” he amends, “but we can go when we get back.”

“No,” Sherlock replies, sitting up, too, so that he can meet John on even ground. “No, we have to go today.”

“It’s fine, love--”

“It’s not.” The words are sharp, cutting off the rebuttal before it can begin.

Because it’s important, and John needs to understand.

Sherlock reaches out for John’s hands, looking down at their fingers twined together. “It’s not,” he repeats, softer this time. “It’s-- I bought the house because I--” He pulls in a deep breath to help soothe his buzzing nerves. It’s still difficult for him, putting words to the emotions John sends coursing through his veins, but he doesn’t let it stop him from trying.

“I bought it to be a place where we could find our happy ending. I thought that that kind of joy was something for the future, that the shadows of our past were still too dark, but that maybe, someday, maybe we could just be happy. Together.” He looks up to find John’s face gone endearingly soft. “But I realised,” he goes on, glancing at the pages of their gifts scattered around the room before coming back to John, “we’re already there. This is-- this is already our happy ending. We’ve already found it. And I just-- We should go today because--”

“Because you don’t want to wait to start living it.”

“Yes.”

He sags with relief, and John catches him, fingers splayed across his jaw as he bends to kiss him, slow and deep, the hint of a grin curling at the corner of his mouth. “Let’s do it,” he says against Sherlock’s lips and kisses him again, quicker but just as tender.

“Really?”

“Yes really.” John slides off the bed and backs toward the bathroom. “You go call Mycroft, get everything sorted. Then come join me in this shower, and after that, we’ll pack up and go start enjoying our happily ever after.”

Sherlock nods and watches him slip through the door. The taps creak and groan as they sputter to life. “John,” he calls over the sound of the running water, and a moment later, John reappears in the doorway. “I love you.”

His answering smile is toothy and warm. “I love you, too. Now hurry up. This hot water isn’t going to last forever.”

No, it won’t.

But this happiness, Sherlock thinks, this happiness just might.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr as [hudders-and-hiddles](http://hudders-and-hiddles.tumblr.com).


End file.
